UKULELE Guitar.

STORY OF THE UKULELE

     The first ‘ukulele was probably made in the 1880s by Portuguese cabinet makers from the Madeira Islands who emigrated to the Kingdom of Hawai‘i in 1879. Recruited to work in the Hawaiian sugar cane fields, Madeirans and other natives of the insular possessions of Portugal and Spain began arriving in large numbers in 1878, and thereafter for a period of about thirty years. Immigrants from the second boatload of Portuguese made quite an impression on Honoluluans, according to one local newspaper: two weeks after the docking of the Ravenscrag in late August, 1879, the Hawaiian Gazette reported that “Madeira Islanders recently arrived here, have been delighting the people with nightly street concerts.” The writer also commented on the “very sweet music” played “on strange instruments which are a kind of cross between a guitar and banjo.” The “strange instrument” was the little four-string Madeiran guitar, known since the 18th century as the machete, but destined to become world-famous as the Hawaiian ‘ukulele.

      Upon fulfilling their contractual obligations to the sugar industry, many Madeiran immigrants relocated from the plantations of Kaua‘i, Mäui, and Hawai‘i, to Honolulu, where they could pursue their former trades in a more cosmopolitan setting. Among these were the marceneiros and fellow Ravenscrag passengers Jose do Espirito Santo, Manuel Nunes, and Augusto Dias. Though primarily cabinet makers, Espirito Santo, Nunes, and Dias followed an ages-old European tradition prevalent in their profession: that of turning their woodworking skills to the craft of stringed-instrument making, or luthiery. So it is not unusual to find that Augusto Dias was listed as a “guitar and furniture maker” in the 1884- 85 Honolulu City Directory. In August, 1885, Dias and Nunes took out separate advertisements in the Portuguese language weekly, O Luso Hawaiiano. Dias advertised himself as a “Manufactor de violas e machets, e todo o instrumento de corda” (maker of guitars, machetes, and all stringed instruments) while Nunes advertised his business as a “marcinaria de instrumentos de corda, violas e machets” (cabinet-maker’s shop of stringed-instruments, guitars, and machetes). The following year, the same paper reported a story which took place “na loja do [in the shop of] Sr. José do Espirito Santo.” Within seven years of arriving in Hawai‘i, all three men had apparently resumed their trades as craftsmen, making furniture and stringed-instruments.

       By 1886 the machete had taken on another name in Honolulu: taro patch fiddle. While the name has been applied to several different instruments since then, at that time it was used to describe any of the small guitars imported or made by the Portuguese. One local writer clearly held the instrument in contempt, calling it “hideous”; conversely, the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson looked forward to including the instrument in a small, musical ensemble made up of family and friends accompanying him on a voyage to Samoa in 1889. It is Stevenson’s step-daughter, Isobel Strong, who gives us the only known first-hand account of King  playing the ‘ukulele, albeit years after his death: “He would occasionally pick up a ukulele or a guitar and sing his favorite Hawaiian song, Sweet Lei-lei-hua.” Much has been made of , the early (and royal) champion of the ‘ukulele, including anecdotal stories of the instrument being used to accompany hulas at his Jubilee celebration in 1886, but to date the contemporary record has yielded scant corroboration.

     Take the case of Edward Purvis, who became the king’s assistant chamberlain in the early 1880s. Purvis, whose nickname was said to be “ukulele” due to his small size and agility, was reputed to be an accomplished performer on the instrument and subsequently it’s namesake. Because carefree Hawaiians associated him with the little guitar, it took on his name. Or so the story goes. But, according to the daily journals of  prime minister, Walter Murray Gibson, Purvis was an intriguer aligned with the king’s political enemies. In 1886, Gibson suspected Purvis was passing unflattering information about  to the king’s opponents, and that he had been the author of two notorious pamphlets (distributed anonymously) that portrayed  as a drunken, womanizing, aboriginal dunce, and the son of a Negro menial with no claim to the throne. When the king was satisfied that his prime minister’s suspicions were true, Purvis was forced to resign. He ended up in Colorado Springs, and died, presumably of tuberculosis, in 1888.

     Another difficulty in taking the Purvis anecdote at face value is that the earliest known published reference to the little Portuguese guitar as an “ukulele” occurred in 1895, in the Hawaiian Gazette. The earliest known use of the u-k-e spelling dates to 1891, in a travel book about Hawai‘i. The author, Helen Mather, observed the “ukelele” being used with the five-string taro patch fiddle to accompany a hula aboard the Australia en route from San Francisco to Honolulu.   The u-k-e spelling gives some credence to Gurre Ploner Noble’s assertion that the instrument derived it’s name from the strumming technique of the player: uke means “to strike” and lele “to jump.” Both spellings show up interchangeably in the Gazette between 1895-1904, however, the frequency of it’s mention is surprisingly small: less than half a dozen times over the same ten-year-period.

      Espirito Santo was the first to advertise “ukuleles” in the City Directory, in 1898, the same year that Dias advertised “instruments made of Hawaiian wood”. Despite increasing awareness of the little instrument, the two surviving (Santo died in 1905) Portuguese makers remained without serious competition until the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, when native Hawaiians Ernest Kaai, Jonah Kumalae, and James Anahu entered the field. About 1910, Manuel Nunes along with his sons Leonardo and Julius, started a production company, M. Nunes & Sons. Nunes’ claim to having been the inventor of the ‘ukulele dates from this period, and while it may have been good marketing, it was bad history. That Nunes invented the instrument is routinely reported to this day, a claim for which there is no credible evidence.

     While the ‘ukulele gained acceptance and popularity in Hawai‘i, it also began showing up on the mainland, first documented at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, were it was used by a quartet of Hawaiian singers, along with Spanish guitars and the five-string taro patch fiddle, to serenade visitors to the Kïlauea Cyclorama exhibit. Over the following decades, Hawaiians continued to promote their unique hybrid music, of which the ‘ukulele was an integral part, at world’s fairs in San Francisco, Omaha, Buffalo, Portland, and Seattle, and through vaudevilles and chautauquas across the country. By 1910, the instrument was very popular on the West Coast, and being sold by the Ditson Co. in New York City. When Oliver Morosco opened the play “The Bird of Paradise” in Los Angeles in 1911, it featured a running accompaniment of Hawaiian music supplied by a quintet of native musicians on-stage. Though not the first stage play to do so (“The Echo” had featured steel guitarist Joseph Kekuku the previous year) the non-stop nature of the music, along with it’s novel character captivated audiences and whetted America’s appetite for more. And more came in February of 1915, with the opening of the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Historically credited with popularizing the ‘ukulele and Hawaiian music on the mainland, the PPIE simply confirmed what many in America already knew: they couldn’t get enough of it.

      A featured performer at ‘Ukulele Expo 2001 & 2002, and Uke Fest West, John King began playing the ‘ukulele while living in Hawai‘i in 1960. He has recorded two CDs for Nalu Music, Royal Hawaiian Music and J. S. Bach: Partita No. 3, both of which have been featured on NPR's All Songs Considered. Mr. King is a contributor to the Hawaiian Journal of History and his book/CD collection of the music of early 20th century ‘ukulele pioneers was published by Mel Bay in May 2004. Currently, he is completing a project for Flea Market Music’s Ukulele Masters series, and co-authoring a scholarly history of the ‘ukulele for a major university press.